We Paint These Pictures
by Eliza4892
Summary: Prequel to Better. ClaireSawyer. There's a difference between just living somewhere, and making it yours.


He bought the house in August and it took her exactly two days of subtle interrogation to figure out exactly where the money came from. Tainted money, tainted house, but to her credit she never once brought his past up, because, as she would say, it was who he was now that was important. And he forced himself to see that distinction between the two, but when he looked in the mirror every morning it was still Sawyer inside and out. He would try, though, because somehow this innocent young woman had done to him what thirty-six years of women had never done, and he never could pinpoint what was so special about her.

What she did do, instead of confronting him about the money's origins, was decide that in order for the house to feel like her own, like _their _own (and that word, all the 'theirs' and the 'we's', made him a little nervous, feel a little out of place, because he'd never truly done the couple thing) they would need to redecorate.

"You want to what?" He asked, eyeing Aaron who was coloring with a pack of markers, sitting on one of the stools that lined the island in the middle of the kitchen. All he saw was the potential of Aaron getting marker – possibly permanent ones – all over the brand new marble countertops that he hadn't yet finished paying for. Claire had brought him home from daycare at noon, since she too had come home early. Now she was sitting surrounded by Better Home and Garden or some such, and he was trying to pretend that he hadn't just gotten out of bed an hour ago.

"Well, paint first of all." She replied, glancing up at him.

He looked at the walls of the kitchen, the off-white paint yellowed slightly with age, a few tiny cracks here and there, but otherwise in fairly good condition. Maybe it was just what he was used to. Places that were lived in. "I think this place was just repainted a couple of years ago."

She leaned towards him, across the smooth surface. "Sawyer, the bathroom is orange. Neon orange. They could have painted it yesterday and I'd still want to redo it." Claire flipped a few pages in the magazine before finding a picture of a bathroom that looked at least twice as big as theirs (and there's wasn't exactly small). It was painted a faint blue hue. "Like this color. It's subtle and it goes with everything. Whoever lived her last had no sense of color coordination."

"Neither do I." She opened her mouth to reply, and he held up a hand. "Nor do I want to learn."

"So you want the bathroom to remain orange? And you're okay with the one green wall in the living room?" All very valid points, which made her that much harder to ignore.

"No, but may I remind you it is the middle of August in Los Angeles. Not ideal painting conditions unless you want to pass out from toxic fumes." He said, having had a similar experience once before. The good thing about learning things the hard way is that you never made that mistake again.

"That's what the windows are for." She countered, with the grace of someone who knew they'd already won this battle.

"Great, trade toxic air for hot air. We'll be sweating our – " he eyed Aaron once more, miraculously able to stop that sentence in its tracks. She nearly smiled, but quickly hid it and went back to staring him down. "Fine, but if you paint anything pink, or I see anything remotely floral come into this house then I'm tossing you out."

"Alright, tough guy, if you say so." She told him.

And that was that. She brought home paint swatches, planned things out, and a week later sent him out to actually get the paint while she finished up at work. Claire worked as a guidance counselor, she had flexible hours, but she was working with this one kid and she had decided that it just couldn't wait. This, of course, was the week that Driveshaft (minus one Charlie Pace) released a new single that promptly began playing on the radio as soon as he got in the car for the drive home. He switched stations, realizing that someone had switched stations on him, and it was probably Claire. He wondered if she had heard it, if she had meant to, if she missed him.

"So I figure we'll start with the bathroom, for obvious reasons." She began, almost as soon as she got home. He hadn't ever seen her this gung-ho about something. It occurred to him that this was probably because they had known each other all of a year and a half (the first few months on the island didn't really count either, she spent most of her time with Charlie, he spent most of his convincing himself that Kate loved him back), and so he didn't have all that much experience with her. He knew next to nothing about her past, except her mother was a part of the vegetable garden after a particularly nasty crash, and her dad…well that was fairly obvious what with Jack being her half-brother and all. She didn't talk about the before, just like she choose to ignore his past. Some part of him was curious as to why a seemingly good girl like her wasn't more open, and he thought maybe she really wasn't as innocent and perfect as she seemed.

He sighed, shaking himself out of his thoughts, and going over to find that light blue she'd been jonesing after ever since she saw it in that damn magazine.

She interpreted the movement a bit differently than he had intended, picking up on something else. "Is this too much for you?" 

Sawyer raised an eyebrow, comically, finding the can and raising that up as well. "I think I can handle a little painting, but thanks for the concern."

Claire frowned. "That's not what I meant."

"And what did you mean?"

"Is this too fast?" She asked, carefully picking her words. It was usually him asking women that question, faking concern for their feelings, putting on the act of the sensitive guy behind closed doors, bad boy outside of them, and it was usually for a completely different reason. But she was serious for this, she actually did care, and she wasn't trying to trick him into anything. Claire was far too sympathetic for her own good.

He set down the can on top of the sheets of newspaper that covered the countertop, not sure at all what he was going to say to that. "Now where would you get an idea like that?"

"You froze up, just there." She told him, far more observant than he would've liked her to be. "And earlier. Ever since I mentioned redoing this place you've been fighting me on it."

"I bought the damn place if you remember correctly." He defended.

"This is different." She insisted. "Just living in a house is different. Then it's just a place where you sleep; it doesn't mean anything. But this…making it ours, it means something else to you doesn't it?"

He looked down, unable to meet her eyes, unable to tell her that she was right. He was supposed to be the one who could read the ladies, not the other way around.

"It's okay, you know, that it does." She continued, chewing on her bottom lip, stumbling over her words, like maybe she didn't want to be doing this. Like she didn't know if she should be doing this.

Yes, they were in what could pass for a relationship, but that didn't mean they talked about feelings. That wasn't him, and she took that as fact, something that would never change, and accepted it. So this line of questioning was just as new to her as it was to him.

"It's not like I'm going to hold it against you." Now she just sounded defensive, shifting awkwardly in the silence. "Are you going to say something sometime soon, or am I going to do all the talking?"

Sawyer cleared his throat. "You seem to be better at it than I am at the moment."

She looked down, seemingly deciding that this was only going to be a one-sided conversation, and that she wasn't going to get any particularly earth-shattering revelations out of him, nor was he going to come right out and say that there was anything wrong. Because that's not what Sawyer did. He denied, pretended that everything was fine. The important thing here was that she had the guts to bring it up in the first place. "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this."

"No," he interjected, and he didn't even really intend to say it, but he did, a few seconds before he realized that he actually meant it. "No, I want to do this."

Her eyes brightened at first, but then she sort of half-frowned, doubtful. "Are you sure?"

"Girl, I ain't ever sure." He said, finally looking up at her. He came closer to her, until she was within arms reach, bringing a hand up that brushed her cheek gently, before dropping to rest on her arm. "I wasn't sure about this, and we ain't doing so badly are we?"

Claire shook her head, a small smile pulling at her lips. "No," she sighed out, closing the space between them, looking like she was about to kiss him, but dropping her head at the last moment so that it rested on his chest. "We're doing just fine."


End file.
